


The Stuff of Legend

by jer832



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Desperation, F/M, Insanity, POV The Doctor (Doctor Who), Post-Episode: s04e16 Waters of Mars, Time Loop, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-14 01:21:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4544703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jer832/pseuds/jer832
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe he was meant to come back, meant to take her.  Maybe the time lines don't matter as long as he has his Rose.  Maybe changing everything from this moment will halt the inexorable progression to his condemning future.<br/>(Spoilers for "Waters of Mars")</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Stuff of Legend

**Author's Note:**

> From a prompt by firstofoct who wanted crazy!Ten post "Waters of Mars" and Rose, for the Summer 2011 fixathon on livejournal

 

 

 

  
  
“What?!"  The Doctor seethed at the Time Lord standing before him. "Do I go totally over the edge in the future? What are YOU doing here? “  
  
“I need to talk to Rose," the older Doctor told his younger self. "It'll take just five minutes, and I won’t tell her who I am.”  
  
“That’ll make it fine, oh yeah; just peachy. And don’t you worry about me wondering why future me isn’t talking to future Rose, or why I'm apparently not at all concerned about inescapable time loops or unsolvable paradoxes. And certainly don’t be bothered about me now sick with worry what I’m going to be getting Rose and me into in our future!”  
  
“Then you’ll disappear for five minutes, yeah?”  
  
The Doctor studied his future self. If possible, he looked (would look) more strung out, sounded (would sound) more unhinged than when he’d woken up in a burning TARDIS with his memories intact, a hole in his hearts big enough to drop a planet through, and a fractured psyche that told him very soberly, thank you, that crazy was the only way to go.  
  
As further proof that he had followed his earlier suggestion, as if he needed any, the Doctor gave himself five minutes.

 

  
~ ~ ~ ~

  
  
“Rose, could you come over for a… Oh." His voice brakes.

His brain computes how long it's been; even in linear time the number is obscene. When he finally gets his voice started up again, all it will do is repeat itself.

"My Rose. My Rose my Rose."

“Doctor, what’s wrong?”  
  
The Doctor _wantsneedsburns_  to run to Rose Tyler and pull her tight against him, feel the heat of her, smell the heady sweet/spicy perfume of Rose-scented musk that told him almost from the moment she ran to the stars with him, that she wants him as much as he wants her. He wants to hold her to him, feasting first on her sharp intake of breath as his cock hardens against her soft warm belly, then her wide-eyed understanding, followed quickly by an uncontrollable long, body-weakening moan and the rush of sweet and sudden wetness between her thighs. He wants her to tremble in his arms even as her courageous fingers open his zipper and slip in to learn him. (He knows they will be courageous; everything of Rose Tyler has always been ever more courageous than this coward of a Time Lord.)   
  
Would it be crazy to take her on the floor of the console room, atop the strut, against the wall? Wouldn’t he be doing himself a favour, really? Maybe he was MEANT to come back, MEANT to take her, MEANT to move their relationship to where it should be right at this moment? Maybe the time lines don’t matter as long as he has his Rose. Maybe changing everything from this moment will halt the inexorable progression to his condemning future.  
  
Maybe this is the leap of faith he should have taken from the first.

Or maybe he is completely crazy after all.

“Doctor, you’re scaring me. What happened?”  
  
He smiles at her. He cups her cheek. He lies. “Nothing happened, Rose. I was wondering. You see, Mickey and I were indulging ourselves in _what ifs_ and battle scenarios while you and Sarah Jane were bonding through the exchange of insultingly accurate anecdotes about me.  I didn't get a chance to ask you both what you would do if-  
  
"For instance... hmmm.... say that some good people, some very very good people, are in danger. You know you can change things to help them; but things can go wrong, very very wrong too.”  
  
“Reapers?”  
  
“No.”  
  
Rose’s eyes are suddenly huge and scared. “Am I going to die?”  
  
“No! No!” He hugs Rose to his side and kisses the top of her head. Her arms slide inside his jacket and wrap around his waist, and it takes only .006 of a second to calculate three places in space and time to hide Rose and him and the TARDIS that will be impossible for his earlier self to find. “Just a game, that’s all.”  
  
“Like a contingency plan.”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
Her hair smells of vanilla and gardenia and Rose Tyler, and she's, oh, yes she is a little wet. He slides a hand to the small of her back, holding her in place as he plays with a wave of her luscious hair then teases it back behind her ear.  He smiles down at her, giving her a saucy wink, just like that first time. When he shifts his body a little to his right, Rose is going to feel the firm hot evidence of what she does to him, what she's always done to him.  
  
She won’t bolt, not his Rose; she’ll make some joke like _Is that a sonic in your pocket or are you glad to see me? Oh Rose Tyler,_ he’ll say, _I’m so very glad to see you._ Then he’ll say, _Wait for me in my room; there’s just one small thing I have to do and then I’ll show you how glad._ He — the other he — will be suspicious of anything he’d say; he'd better just get rid of him and the idiot quickly and take the TARDIS straight into the void.  
  
“So what’s the problem?”  
  
“The…? Oh, yes. Say that you want to save some people. If you stop events, there may be Reapers. If you alter events you will affect the future, but you don’t know if it would be for better or for worse.”  
  
“And it’s like the space ship hitting Big Ben, right, or the Sycorax blood control? Everyone in London knows about it. Or is it like our missing the year?“  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“As far as Mum and the others were concerned, it was a year and I was gone. But for us, it was just a few hours. I could have been dead, or traveling with you in Europe or in time and space, and no one knew which. Except for us.”  
  
Rose gives him her trademark Rose Tyler grin, and his brain melts.  The constant, somewhat comforting fever of manic despair in his soul is flushed with a Rose Tyler-scented pellucidness.  
  
"Of course!  Rose Tyler, you are truly brilliant!"  
  
It is so logical; so elegant; so simple that he shou… oh yes once again his Rose has shown how brilliant she is! He'll let the physical circumstances play out around Adelaide Brooke and the others, but without them. He’ll take them somewhere safe. They won’t see their families, and their loved ones will think they died of course, and history will write itself just as it should for those people. But they'll live. Adelaide can make a difference twice over because of him and Rose, and her granddaughter will have her destiny.

_Destiny_. Rassilon, how he'd hated to even think that word, but with Rose back at his side it has an uncommon sweetness.    
  
Yes! He’ll do that. Calculating and carrying it out are simple for a Time Lord with a TARDIS. Just check the best possible time and place to put them into. Simple. Elegant.  
  
Everybody lives.   
  
Time Lord Victorious.  
  
His Rose and he-- the stuff of legend.

 

* * *

 

 

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.  
  
This story archived at <http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=50257>


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